


_Quaint Old World

by glenarvon



Series: _Brilliancy [35]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-12-12
Packaged: 2018-02-21 12:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2468120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glenarvon/pseuds/glenarvon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The not-so-distant future looks a little bleak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Quaint Old World

**Author's Note:**

> Phone design taken from LG Flutter Concept Phone. Check it out. It's kickass!
> 
> The representation of this future world owes a great deal to the works of Ken MacLeod (The Execution Channel and Intrusion, particularly) and maybe a little bit to Richard K. Morgan's books Market Forces and Black Man/Thirteen. Very little of that actually makes it into the story, but this is how I envisioned it. 
> 
> Things were left intentionally vague and as snap-shots.

* * *

_[this takes place roughly twenty-five years after the events of the main game]_

* * *

A new car is parked outside the cabin, pristinely clean and ecologically small. It looks like a toy beside a mud-smeared off-road motorcycle leaning closer to the cabin and partially covered up against the weather. The last model to still be sold with a combustion engine, making the bike heavier than newer models, but with more power behind it.

Two men are sitting on a small table in a cabin. One still young, the other older, greying with a gaunt face and hair shot through with silvery grey. Despite this, there is some resemblance, not quite striking, but visible, in the play of light and shadow and more so, in the way they move.

There is no tablecloth, because it hasn't occurred to the older to waste time on such draperies. Not that he _hasn't_ time, but it doesn't occur anyway. He has served coffee, though, and its scent and varied flavour lent the moment unexpected tranquility.

The sun is high in the air, casting golden autumn light through the small windows of the cabin and it's equally small, tidy interior.

"There is no middle ground anymore," the older one says. "There is _off the grid_ and _in the system._ No wriggle room, no grey spaces." He pauses for a moment, considers. "No backdoors, either."

The younger one looks around the room, at the workbench in the corner, strewn now as well as ever with dissembled high-tech gadgets, lurking in the dark with the work-light turned off. He knows the electricity is supplied by a generator and the fuel delivered by the old owner of the local pub every month. An oven, pitched-black, charred metal disperses heat from a wood-fire, more than enough to warm the cabin, even if winter is hard, which is increasingly rarely the case.

He's responsible for some of these gadgets on the workbench. He buys whatever he thinks might interest his uncle and dumps it on him, whenever he can find an excuse to drive out here. He buys whatever won't put him on a watch-list. _My uncle likes to tinker. A bit eccentric in his old age, you know? Yeah, tell me about it. Dying breed, right?_ He can't be sure he _isn't_ on a watch-list, but it was safe to assume it's not the right kind, or they couldn't be sitting here and share coffee.

Today, he could have done without the excuse.

"I'm sorry, Jacks," the older one says. He leans back in his seat, watches him.

"It's mom's funeral," Jackson says and is surprised how meek his voice sounds. In that moment, he can't quite remember why it should even matter. He _knows_ these things, he knows his uncle can't come and it's childish and stupid to think he might find a way.

His uncle studies him, calm in the face of the news of her death. "Let me paint you a picture, kid."

And he does, and just that he bothers at all is all the proof Jackson needs. How much this matters to him and how much he wants to go. But there is no way, really. Road surveillance will pick him up, ten miles down the road, at the utmost, superhydrophobic lenses on cameras, pristinely clean even in the wild and the dirt kicked up from the badly-kept road. Trans-material biometric mapping scanning his face no matter where he turned.

Tracking drones will take to the skies, herd them, like cattle, to exactly where the police find it convenient to pick them up. "Have you ever _seen_ a swarm of those?" his uncle asks.

He hasn't, but he's heard of it. Tracking drones will herd you, like cattle, to exactly where the police find it convenient to pick you up. He shakes his head.

"You don't want to," his uncle asserts. He doesn't tell the story, but Jackson knows of it already. Those were still the vigilante days and tracking drones were barely past the prototype stage, guarding and handful of sensitive structures around the city to see how they performed.

Jackson knows _of_ the story, not how it had played out all those years ago. His uncle and his precious secrets and this seems just a minor thing, all things considered.

Jackson thinks of leaving it at that. He could finish the coffee and head home, prepare for the funeral on his own, head over to Deliah, fall asleep in her arms. It doesn't seem such a bad version of events.

All his life, Jackson has known himself to be part of two worlds. There has always been something that didn't quite match when he compared himself to anyone he has ever met in all his life. He has a different kind of history, however little he sometimes saw it reflected in his life.

He has this.

"Maybe there's a way to trick the system," Jackson hears himself say. "Just for an hour or two."

He looks up. "Criminals do it all the time, too."

"And then they get caught," his uncle says. "I've seen the statistics."

"You believe them?" Jackson asks surprised. Because he sure as hell believes _nothing_ official.

Something tiny, almost like a smile, crosses his uncle's face. "Perhaps it would be better to say, I've seen the raw numbers and I can do the math."

Jackson thinks about this. His uncle is a man of many secrets, surely he would be able to keep a few from his nephew for his own sake, if nothing else.

Have you recently tried paying in cash in a store? It's frowned upon, even here in the sticks, though technically still a viable method, it's like announcing your intention of committing a crime over loudspeaker. His uncle grows his own food and hunts in the woods, what else he needs, he'll find someone to bring it to him.

He is off the grid. It doesn't mean a clever man can't hold on to some connections.

"On average, it takes twelve minutes to solve a crime, less than a day for an arrest," his uncle says. "At least once you disregard crimes you can't hide in front of a cam."

And it's shocking because Jackson is right, you can't believe the official numbers. They are _worse._ Makes you think, doesn't it? What reason does the government have to make it's crime statistics worse?

The answer is, of course, because the real numbers would spook the hell out of you, spark paranoia in even the most trusting of souls.

Jackson has one last argument. He isn't entirely sure he should use, has been debating back and forth on the way. But the deal has already been done, the _damage_ has already been done, after a hasty, sneaky, awkward and starkly dangerous deal with a member of an endangered species: a Fixer.

"I got some stuff from the black market," Jackson says. He picks up his backpack and puts it on the table between them, letting it sit there, beside cups full of coffee so black it might just as easily be tar.

His uncle's first instinct, Jackson can see, is to be angry with him, for taking a stupid risk, _any_ risk at all. Jackson talks fast, while he still can, while the discussion might still go where it needs to.

"This is Blume tech," he says. "State of the art. This is the stuff the cops have, the agencies. This is what theyuse, right now. Barely twenty-four hours out of date. This…" he points at the backpack like it's some sacred, long-sought after treasure out of a fairy tale. And perhaps it is. "If there's no opening in _this_ then we are all doomed."

His uncle doesn't move, gaze hovering between Jackson and the backpack, lined face set in a stony calm Jackson has never quite managed not to dread, even though he is the only person _safe_ in its presence.

"How?" he asks, voice gone breathless. Awed. Disbelieving. "I burned DedSec trying to get my hands on this stuff."

Despite himself, despite everything Jackson knows or suspects, this takes him by surprise. DedSec has been gone for decades. Rarely, some lone hacker claims their name as they are dragged off to court, but whether there is ever anything more substantial to it, Jackson doesn't want to guess. For all he knows, for all his instincts tell himn, DedSec is gone. It went down in one long long night in a wave of house searches and arrests, leaving a different world behind.

It was only a week before his uncle finally declared his own retreat to the hinterlands. It was funny, though, DedSec and the vigilante both had a habit of cropping up in urban myth anyway, ever since, in a manifestation of an anarchistic streaks their brave new world has yet failed to breed out of them all.

"It's… complicated," Jackson finally says. "My girlfriend's mother was DedSec, but she grew up with her father, there were no records, right? And when the New Register Act hit, she lied her way out of it, like I did."

New Register was the curtain call. If you were a hacker, or a gang-banger, or a mobster, or anything other than an honest citizen, this was your last chance to use your opening. New Register created a database of everyone, all their information, stored in one place. There _were_ protests, but the government sold it on how beneficial it was, cutting down on bureaucracy in so many small ways, the protests never gained enough momentum to roll over the Act.

His uncle had used it weave a new identity for him out of thin air and then taken it and ran, all the way out here. Not doubt in much the same way many others had done. And then, New Register closed all the old doors, keeping you locked on whatever side you'd chosen.

His uncle had also used it to sever himself from Jackson, reduce the name to nothing more than a coincidence. _No no, I'm not_ the _Jackson Pearce. You wouldn't believe how often I get that. Here, it's all in my files, I'm not bullshitting you._ _Helps with small talk on parties, though._

"Like we all did," his uncle echoes. "Everyone knew how the wind was blowing."

"Yeah," Jackson agrees. "So, she holds a grudge. And she knows people, and _they_ know people. Made them trust me. I kept you out of it all, I swear."

Jackson pauses, rests his gaze on the backpack. "Look, does it matter? Isn't it possible the government's become a little careless? It's been twenty years of almost smooth sailing. They've destroyed DedSec, driven you out, Blume's practically running the country, why shouldn't they become complacent on their laurels?"

When his uncle moves, finally, breaking a spell Jackson hasn't realised is there, it's to put a long-boned hand on the backpack, pull it towards himself. He opens the magzip and it hisses quietly as it releases.

It's a fascinating thing, his uncle's face as he examines the contents and Jackson has never been entirely sure how to read him. There is a crease worn down between his eyebrows, deep gashes on the sides of his mouth, corners slanted downward. Bags under his eyes from age rather than lack of sleep. It occurs to Jackson that he's an old man and this is the promise of his youth and perhaps it's unfair to give it to him, even for an hour, even if he can only use it to mourn his sister.

His uncle looks up, catches and holds Jackson's gaze. There is a spark there, something _new,_ Jackson thinks at first, but corrects himself immediately. It's not new, the opposite in fact. This is old, some residue of fires.

It's the worst kept secret, if Jackson has ever seen it, that his uncle hates the countryside. He's bored out of his wits. There's just so much you can do with low-end gadgets on a workbench and without any network access worth the term.

"This isn't for a funeral," his uncle observes. Reaches in and pulls out the phone and it opens in his hands like a fan, thin, flexible screen between blackly metallic guardsticks. It boots at his touch, springs to life and he snaps it closed again.

Jackson has never seen anything nearly as sophisticated as this phone in his uncle's hands, but he seems to have no trouble grasping the concept.

"It is," Jackson says. "It's only for that. That's the deal, uncle. You don't go… do… the things you did. Because I don't want to go to your funeral, too. Not when mom isn't even in the ground yet. I want you to be at my wedding, all right? I want you to hold your grandchildren."

A smile steals itself onto his uncle's face, a little rueful, but his eyes have yet to lose their curious glitter.

"Easy there," he says mildly. "Don't go wasting all your ammo on the first shot."

But Jackson won't give in, "You promise me. With this stuff? You can come and go, if you don't attract attention. It'll work for years. There's no reason why it shouldn't."

His uncle laughs, a deep-throated, self-deprecating sound, but not without genuine humour, or warmth.

"Come on, I'm kidding, Jacks," he says. "I'm not going to be running and gunning through Chicago. Those days are gone."

He glances down at the phone. "I don't even know if I can find a way to trick the system, but I'll try."

He looks up. "I'll try and I'll come to the funeral."

Jackson takes a breath, doesn't realise how much he has needed to until he does, weight off his chest from one moment to the next, setting him free.

"Thanks," he whispers. "It… it means a lot."

For a moment, the sparkling humour is gone and his uncle nods gravely.

It's an accident, though, of chance and circumstance that makes his mother's funeral and his acquisition of the hardware fall into the same moment. He's planned to get and give these things to his uncle for many years, but the chance has never come before. But it's a good thing, it'd be hard to rein in his uncle, if he's set his mind on something. And his mother is one of the few people to hold any weight in this equation, even now that she's dead. Or perhaps because of it.

It's the best Jackson can do. He's fairly sure it's the best his uncle can do, too.

* * *

It's still early in the evening when Jackson drives home, the low humming of the electric motor his only companion. His Radio has suggested a few appropriate songs for the occasion, but he's declined. He'll need to face the thoughts in his own head, make up his own mind while he can hear himself think.

He passes a swarm of sleek tracking drones, hovering over the hills for a moment, then congealing behind him like a black cloud visible in his rear-view mirror.

His heart skips, than tries to beat itself out of his chest, choking his throat. He sits there, petrified, for a much longer than he realises. He doesn't know what to do, like he's a little boy again and his world spins completely out of his control.

* * *

There is nothing on the news. Nothing at all. Jackson doesn't believe them, but through lies they tell, they still sometimes reveal some shards of truth.

What is he to make of this? Surely, _someone_ would wish to gloat? It's not the triumph it could've been, not the victory it would have been if Chicago's infamous vigilante had been brought down twenty years earlier. It's more difficult to conjure a good headline out of a lonely old man in a cabin. No doubt it could be done, though.

Yet. _Nothing._

* * *

The rain is heavy, beating down like the end of the world on the graveyard, like it's trying to wash them all away, sweep clean the decades of dirt and grime from all the gravestones. Simultaneously revealing the names on all the graves and hiding them behind a thick curtain of grey.

Jackson's memory of Lena has grown hazy over the years. It's too long and he was too young. He's never completely figured out how her loss was supposed to make him feel. He still doesn't know and he's tired of therapists giving him the same useless advise over and over again. His life is under his control, as much as can be said for anyone, and he's decreed that it be enough.

He clings to Deliah throughout, much more than he wants to. He's uncomfortable, more than she is, but she says nothing, is just _there_ because she knows what it means, what all of this means to him.

His uncle isn't there. It shouldn't be surprising, but Jackson has no answers to what has happened. His best guess is that the government tech was being tracked, automatically and was doubtlessly flagged as stolen. It hasn't been the _deal,_ but Jackson couldn't exactly go and ask for a refund.

Deliah settles her head on his shoulder and water runs down into the back of his coat.

* * *

It takes far too long until he works up the courage to go back to the cabin, chastising himself all the way. Should have been earlier, should have turned around then and there and raced after the swarm. Make some kind of bullshit statement, burn the life he had built to the ground in one big conflagration. A great last stand.

He doesn't. He can't. His mother wouldn't want him to. His uncle wouldn't. Deliah might cheer, but she wouldn't want him to, either.

He goes back, eventually. Under a pretext, a good story, in case someone asks awkward questions.

Instead, the cabin is deserted. No, not just empty, but _tidy._ Nothing on the workbench, most of the clothes gone from the wardrobe. Someone cleaned this out, took everything useful. Could be a neighbour, though. Or it could be…

Dust dances in sunlight rays and the silence sure as hell lacks the compassion to finish the thought for him.

* * *

It's weeks later. A month. Two. Half a year.

He asks Deliah to marry him. It's old-fashioned, but he wants her, formally, forever.

Life goes on.

He still doesn't have any answers.

* * *

The morning is murky, ugly in the aftermath of the first blackout in sixteen years. It's thrown the city into more chaos than Jackson has ever seen since he was a teenager. He wanders out on the balcony and lights a cigarette. His phone warns him about the health risk and sends an automatic notification to his insurance company.

 _Go right ahead,_ he thinks glumly. _Keep that up and we'll see how you deal with a nine-story drop._

The smoke burns down his throat, acrid and bitter and, yeah, got to admit that, pretty damn awful. Stupid habit, like he can't think of another way to show some defiance. What is he? Fifteen?

His phone announces a call, cheerfully subservient as if their previous discord has never happened.

He lets it wail for a full minute. It asks if it should take a message.

"Yeah!" he snaps. Why has he ever though that voice interface was a good idea? It's like he's got himself a nagging spouse, because Deliah didn't want to play the part.

The phone stops, though, taking his message and he has a moment of peace. He gets through the cigarette with his pride intact, though feeling slightly queasy, smoking on an empty stomach. Such private acts of defiance, they never are quite as satisfying as you imagine them beforehand.

He heads back inside and sets himself to make breakfast. He puts the phone down on the counter as he busies himself and let's it finally spew out the message.

It's distorted, odd enough for a high-tech call and there are odd lags between the words, making it hard to decipher at first and it confuses him for an endless minute. Too long, surely, for a voice this deep and this distinctive.

_"I'm sorry I couldn't make it to Nicky's funeral. I made a promise and I broke it. Wasn't my choice, but there it is. I stand by what I said, however: No more running and gunning. But there are other things for me to do. You shouldn't worry._

_I'm not going to be at your wedding, either, but congratulations to the both of you. Tell Deliah she's made a good match, but I could be biased. Don't forget that you owe me some grandchildren."_

Jackson turns on his heels, draws a thin line of coffee after him from the cup he holds askew.

Later, he will be vaguely grateful he's painstakingly made sure most of the cameras in his house recorded the back of flowerpots, piles of books, the edge of a box or the heel of Deliah's favourite boots and _not_ his stupid expression for whoever's watching.

_"Oh, I made sure this message deletes itself after you've listened to it, I hope you've been paying attention."_

_ __ _


	2. The Good Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [this takes place in 2038, about a year after the events of Quaint Old World]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've completely forgotten I've actually finished this one… You might as well have it. Enjoy.
> 
> Btw, I don't actually _know_ why my stories sometimes switch between present and past tense. Some scenes just demand to be written a certain way. It switches halfway through the story for no reason I can consciously determine. But it _needs_ to be this way, otherwise it just doesn't sound right.

 

It isn't the first time he's stared down the barrel of a gun. He's seen the moment preceding it, known it would happen maybe even before Ellis has made the decision himself. By chance, rather than skill or experience, Ellis stands too far away for him to intervene before he can raise the gun. The wide bulk of an old conference table is between them. Too many decades ago to think, Aiden might have attempted to act. He could have leapt that table and kicked the gun from Ellis' fingers before it became a true threat. But even at the height of his training, it would have been a risky move.

Now, the mere thought of it leaves bitter-tasting amusement on his tongue as he contemplates the embarrassment of trying such a thing. He leans back instead and the rickety office chair creaks with the move, sends uncomfortable echoes through the large basement room and makes the assorted members of DedSec Underground shuffle in place, agitation thick in the air.

The gun isn't steady in Ellis' hand, he's shivering ever so slightly and his whole body seems ready to snap. You can never outmanoeuvre a bullet, it doesn't have the necessary pressure points, only the gunman does.

From his seat down the length of the table, very quietly, Jackson says, "Ellis, don't. I asked him to come."

Ellis glances at Jackson, but doesn't dare take his eyes off Aiden, who's looking back at him calmly, an image of boredom and it sets Ellis' teeth on edge even more. It's Jackson he speaks to when Ellis says, "Who the fuck is he? I told you not to bring any strangers! It's too dangerous."

"He wrote the Perception app," Jackson said. Aiden keeps his gaze locked on Ellis, on the gleaming black gun and the way Ellis' expression is oscillating between fear and determination.

Technically, Aiden wrote a very buggy alpha build of Perception. Enough to trick some of ctOS' low-key features, altering the search pattern of their cameras and thus leaving blind spots to squeeze through. The app's current iteration, with its far more advanced features was T-Bone's work. Hastily and brilliantly put together in a corner of the homeless shelter he inhabited.

But Ellis doesn't know that and he won't. Aiden senses the surprise washing through the audience, ever so slightly altering the moment. Ellis is their leader, but not by merit of charisma or qualification. He is the leader because no one else has stepped up to the plate, because he's the only one with the bravado to pull a gun and hold it to a man's face.

Jackson hesitates, Aiden feels the questioning gaze, but he prefers not to look back. He's seen the way Ellis is getting more nervous with every second that passes. By now, he must have realised just how heavy a loaded gun can become on the end of an outstretched arm.

Jackson reaches a decision, but he isn't sure of it, doesn't know if Aiden approves or if it'd help. He says it anyway, "He's Aiden Pearce. He can help."

There is another silence after this, heavier than the first. Ellis seems shellshocked for no more than a second, than grates out a laugh. It isn't a very good one, it doesn't mask his insecurity at all.

"Pearce is an urban myth. He was never real."

"He's my uncle," Jackson says as if it constitutes some kind of valid argument. It's touching to hear it, because Jackson really believes it, really believes in some version of his uncle, Aiden has never quite figured out. Why _is_ he here? Why has he chased down T-Bone and risked to tear the man's carefully constructed cover into tiny pieces. All of it, only so he can give it to these _children_ playing at being revolutionaries?

Ellis waves the gun around to emphasis his words. In another time, it would have been an opening to use, but here and now, it's just aggravating to watch.

"Is that it?" Ellis demands of Aiden. "Can you _help us_?" Scorn is thick in his tone. He knows he's slipping, he's pulled the gun and now he's left without a script. He doesn't know how to put it away without seeming weak. It's never a good place for someone to be, they snap too easily.

Aiden shifts a little, just enough, the beginning of a movement quickly aborted. Ellis takes a step closer to the table.

It's easy to find that icy calm again, too easy perhaps after so many years, but it's there and Aiden can tell Ellis doesn't like the look of it. Aiden says, "What are you planning?"

"Like I'd tell you! Jacks could have sold us out! For all I know you're working for Blume!"

"You know who I am, Jacks told you," Aiden points out reasonably. He puts his chin forward, indicates the crates full of guns at the back of the room. There may be more he hasn't seen. "Let's see what we have," Aiden continues. "You've amassed guns and you've got Perception. For the first time in over twenty years, you can move freely through the city. Not just Chicago, but anywhere they use ctOS. You're going to recruit and then you're going to wage the war DedSec's always promised and never delivered. And you think you can actually pull it off."

He pauses, arches a condescending brow at the young man. "How am I doing so far?"

"That's not all!" Ellis announces, clearly trying to convince himself and his people rather than the sneering old man he's threatening with a gun.

Aiden leans forward, puts a hand on the table in front of him, shoves himself a little further back, getting some small distance between himself and the table. "You'd better hope that's not all, because you don't get it. Because, I don't know what games you're playing in your free time, but this isn't going to be won with a few guns. It's not the middle ages. You can't lay siege to Blume with a bunch of heretics. They'll crush you and then they'll spin a few good headlines. One assault, even if it's successful, which I doubt, won't mean _shit_. Blume's a vast multi-national with fingers in every government in the world. Do you think _any_ decision is made that's not approved by Blume? Just two years ago they send us to war, remember?"

Wide-eyed now, Ellis passes the gun briefly to his left hand, wipes the right on his shirt. "That's China!" he says. "China invaded Africa and we're _helping_ them."

Aiden doesn't laugh, it's too sad to. "And look at you, buying right into the propaganda. Blume wants the resources and that's what Blume'll get."

"I'm not!" Ellis snaps. "It's going to work! Blume's got a headquarters here! We'll get in, and we'll connect to their network and then we can shut it all down!"

This time, Aiden _does_ laugh. It sounds ugly and grating even for him, but it does the job, it brings Ellis all the way around the table. He plants himself right in front of Aiden, presses the gun to his forehead so hard he nearly manages to cover the trembling of his hand.

"Ellis," Jackson calls. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"He's talking bullshit!" Ellis snaps, looks up and past Aiden's shoulder at Jackson. "What does he know anyway! It's a good…"

… _plan._ He was going to say 'plan' and there are not enough alternate universes to make it true. At any rate, Aiden has him where he needs him and there's no point in waiting any longer, no sure way to know the moment will last at all.

No sure way to know it'll _work,_ either, but part of him is morbidly curious if that damn bullet with his name on will ever come to collect at all. Aiden moves and he remembers how to do it, how to snatch one arm up and wrap fingers around the gun, how to _hold_ and _twist_ and _turn_ until Ellis loses the grip on the gun with a pained yelp. Aiden springs from the chair with a speed he knows he'll regret later. He steps into Ellis' leg, makes him stagger and topple even as Aiden brings his other hand up Ellis' neck to grab the back of his head.

Ellis remembers how to struggle, but Aiden holds on, searing muscles and aching joints through a moment when he's not sure his body will last. It forces a snarl past his lips, and nothing else. Ellis uses the moment to kick out ineffectively and then Aiden slams him down on the table, face first, not hard enough to do any true damage, but enough to leave blood running from his nose and pool on the table.

Aiden pulls him back by the neck, stares him down and Ellis only tries to twitch away. He _could_ get away, break the hold. Aiden knows it, but Ellis can't see it. He has the strength to, but not the willpower.

"You know what else I know?" Aiden asks him. It's barely a whisper, but Ellis is close enough. "If _I_ can do this, what do you think Blume Corporate Police is going to do with you?"

He gives Ellis a shove, but he's seen the anger in the younger man's face, the wounded pride and the dumb animal instinct it brought to the fore. Ellis will try him again, but he doesn't know how to do it, his eyes give him away and when he lunges for the gun again, Aiden's faster and he's done playing, done _arguing._

He twists Ellis arm before it can get to the weapon and slams the hand down flat on the table. He picks up the gun, spins it easily in his hand before he can think about how stiff his fingers are, puts the muzzle to Ellis' hand.

Ellis whimpers, trying to pull away and although pain shoots up Aiden's arm, he shows nothing of it, doesn't loosen his grip, doesn't even flinch.

He pulls the trigger.

The gun clicks emptily and Ellis shrieks and then goes limp in his grip as the tension breaks all at once, half toppling over the table before he can catch himself with his free hand. He looks up at Aiden, lips quivering and eyes wide. There is something he wants to say, but no words come.

Aiden eases up on his hold, pulls the gun's magazine from his sleeve and slams it on the table. He steps away after that, gets clear in case Ellis has the guts to come at him again, but it'll be another minute until Ellis has found his bearing. For now, he's leaning on the table, breathing like he's ran a marathon, fingers still spread as if Aiden's still holding him down.

Through it all, it turns out, Jackson hasn't moved at all and his expression doesn't seem to have changed either. His gaze flickers between Aiden and Ellis, then settles on his uncle. He's only here for Jacks, only for him, _everything_ only ever for him. Jackson has enough sense to keep himself on the outside of DedSec Underground's inane schemes. But Jackson _wants_ this to be true, it's all there is to it.

And it's not enough.

Aiden says, "I'm sorry, Jacks. I can't fix it. Not this time."

* * *

Ellis' revolutionary zeal dogs him through the days.

But the doors are all closed. There is room only for minor things, smoke and mirrors in place of real magic. Enough to keep him safe in the world, enough to hide himself from ctOS. Him and T-Bone and Jackson and all the others he's met through the years who meant anything to him at all.

* * *

He tracks T-Bone to the new homeless shelter he's fled to.

"How do you keep _finding_ me?" T-Bone asks exasperated and grips Aiden's arm, drags him with him before Aiden even has a chance to answer.

"That's the first time I've been crowded into a toilet stall," Aiden says, resting a boot up on the toilet bowl so he can stand halfway comfortably.

T-Bone grimaces, "Makes two of us, buddy. Can't trust Perception, they've upgraded surveillance three weeks ago and it's the only remotely secure place. Legislation still doesn't want any camera in the shit house. Just a question of time, if you ask me. What do you want?"

Aiden is silent. There is no ctOS in here with them, but it's far from private. He can hear the other men milling around outside. "I need your help," he says finally.

"Well, that's good to know," T-Bone mutters. "Because I need yours. I ain't feeling safe here, or anywhere. I'm sure they're onto me… Damn, listen to me, I sound like Frewer. But the point stands, I need an out, a real one, this time."

"I have an idea."

T-Bone grins, quick and unrelenting. "Don't you ever. What's your deal?"

"Just a message I have to send."

T-Bone narrows his eyes. "I got a feeling I'm not going to like it."

* * *

It was a dismal day. It had rained throughout the night, but although it had let up by sunrise, the gravel paths of the graveyard had turned to muddy tracks through sodden marshland. A few wayward rays of sunlight were breaking through an otherwise perfect cloud cover, painting the glistening gravestones and lending the moment what gravitas it could.

A motley group of people stood around a new grave. They were standing a little too far apart, like people do who do not actually know each other well, who had come out of obligation, not the love and the loss normally associated with funerals.

A man in a shabby black suit under his shabby black coat stood a little apart form the others, speaking his eulogy in low, monotonous tones.

_"… I cannot say I knew him well…"_

On a slope, a little away from the new grave and it's peculiar mourners, was a stone bench. On it was a man, outlined against the bleached-pale sky. He had leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and closer inspection would reveal he wasn't looking at the funeral, but at the phone in his hand. An even closer look would reveal it to be an old phone, by several decades. They used to call them _smartphones,_ but it was no longer an apt description in any shape or form. But the man was old, too.

Another man came striding up the wet path, walking in long, measured steps. Not young, either, by any stretch of the imagination, but his coat collar was up against the rain and the wind, his hands tucked away in his pockets. There was not enough visible to identify him at a distance, by human eyes alone and for some reason, the ever present surveillance cameras in the area altered their movement pattern and turned a curious circle around the two men, never quite recording their faces for automatic identification.

"Would you listen to that?" the man with the phone said. "Eric and I, we've been talking for _hours._ Drinking, too, playing poker. I thought we were friends."

Aiden seemed amused. "He thought you were a welder, T-Bone."

"Well," T-Bone said. He took his eyes off the phone and looked to the side. "Now he thinks I'm dead."

Aiden remained standing for a long moment, he let his gaze travel around the graveyard, watching the cameras on their tall poles all around. Eventually, he shook back into motion, took the last two steps to the bench and sat down.

"In a few hours, you'll be out of the country," Aiden said. "And Blume will receive the hints they need to find your grave. It's all arranged. It's time you do your part."

T-Bone sighed, stared back into his phone before he gave up the act and leaned back, stared at Aiden on the other end of the bench. "About that… I've been thinking and, Aiden, I don't know."

Turning his head, Aiden fixed him with narrowed eyes. "What's the problem?"

"They'll catch you, man," T-Bone raised his voice, just a little, enough to make his irritation clear. A gust of wind picked up above them, shook the old trees and seemed to scatter the mourners down the hill. The service done, they wandered off in their separate directions. No one lingered even a second.

"They'll put you behind bars or in the ground. I'm not helping you commit suicide."

"And this is better?" Aiden asked, frosty calm in his voice, unmoving but for the wind tucking on his collar. "I tried running and I tried hiding and I'm tired of both. Lately, I'm thinking _let them come_." He paused for a moment. "Let them lose a little sleep over it. Let them doubt."

T-Bone watched him, the personification of skepticism. "Can't say I agree. I get the sentiment, man, but… well, ain't no point if you aren't around to watch it go down."

"I _can_ do this alone," Aiden offered. "Not as well or as easily, but if you really want no part..."

T-Bone groaned, put his head back and stared at the colourless sky. "Fuck it, of course I'll help."

He squared his shoulders and got to his feet, stared down at Aiden, "If that's what you want, I won't ditch you. Been too long for that. I still think it's pretty dumb, but it's your choice."

He grinned a little, "Let's give them a show."

* * *

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000

01101101 01100001 01110011 01101011

00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000

01100111 01101111 01101001 01101110

01100111 00100000 01110101 01110000

The press called it the Glitch.

For exactly ten seconds, all ctOS screens in Chicago — and _only_ in Chicago — had flashed a message and then returned to normal as if nothing had happened. Most people had seen it, there were barely any screens left _not_ networked in some way to ctOS. In the midst of the wildest speculations Blume was running damage control, but they were fighting the tide.

ctOS — not compromised, not hacked in decades, notoriously without exploits — _ctOS_ had apparently just slipped their control and after the ten seconds had passed a certain sense of doubt lingered in those circles of society still perceptive enough to tell a true breach from a viral marketing stunt.

It was obvious, if you knew where to look, just how petrified Blume's PR personnel was, how frantic police and Corporate Police became in the Glitch's aftermath.

_The mask is going up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **References:** 'The Good Life' by Weezer plays on the radio in the game and is half the reason this particular installment even exists.
> 
> 'The mask is going up' is used as code by Aiden in the novel "Dark Clouds". That binary code probably should have been a QR code to keep with game aesthetics, but while ao3 seems to allow images, ff.net does not and I want the stories to be identical in both archives. The QR code is my profile picture, however.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is an obvious pun on 'Brave New World'. I'll try to be more clever next time.
> 
> I wanted to be ambigious about Jackson's lover. You know, gender-neutral name and never a pronoun, but it required a lot of awkward phrasing or removing many direct mentions. It disrupted the flow of the story.
> 
> I think I messed up references to how much time has passed a little bit. I went over it to fix everything but I can't guarantee it. On the other hand, there are mentions to how long ago the end of the game was, as well as how long ago Aiden's retirement was. Those aren't the same numbers.
> 
> Lastly, I'm not completely satisfied with the ending. I don't know what he's gonna do now. I'd love a glorious return to old form, but I don't think that's on the table. I don't really deal with happy endings, but let's give him a good last run, shall we?


End file.
